Congress adjourns at mid-term, invokes Sheetala's blessings to cure COVID

As the Fifty First Congress adjourned for the summer recess at the midpoint of its term, the Arati to Sheetala (click on above) was sung in temples throughout Patria as the Inner Realm continues to seek her blessings in order to find a cure for COVID19.

Patria is doubling down on herd immunity and COVID dissident voices as the Annual Message to Congress was delivered and the Sergeant-at-Arms brought down the gavel to declare closed the Second Session of the 51st Congress (2·LI 2019-20) and call lawmakers to return to the Capitol on September 21, 2020 for the Third Session (3·LI 2020-21).

Following is the transcription of the Annual Message:

Om Durga Uma Lalitha Bhavanye Namah. With the Divine Mother’s blessings and at the lotus feet of Amma Sri Karunamayi and Amma Amritanandamayi, the Fifty-first Congress has come to the midpoint of its term. The Second Session actually passed quite a bit of legislation and held some key debates from September 2019 until the first week of March 2020. And then the lamps went out all over the world, as the corona virus gripped both the macro- and micro-world in fear of another 1918 flu pandemic. Yet over the course of the Second Session, while the corona virus has proliferated throughout the macro-world, there have been only a few mala’s worth of serious cases of COVID-19 in Patria that required hospitalization and fewer than 108 mahasamadhis that were directly attributable to the virus. For the vast majority of Patrienish citizens who contracted it, COVID-19 turned out to be little more than a mild flu, if they had any symptoms at all.

For several weeks in March and April, as a lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was imposed, Patria’s economy ground to a near halt. But the lockdown was called off not only because COVID-19 failed to become the deadly killer that the fear-mongers had predicted but because the social, economic and mental health costs of indefinite layoffs, furloughs and forcing almost everyone to stay at home as if under house arrest were far worse than the disease itself. Here on the floor of Congress, it was argued by the Social Democrats and SRM opposition alike that the goals of keeping the economy out of recession and allowing citizens to resume their everyday activities far outweighed the need to cower at home out of fear in order to feel safe from a disease that was having almost no effect on much of Patria. As Congress and the 13 Precincts declared an immediate end to the lockdown, the following points were made in favor of re-opening the economy:

• How many children should starve in order to make you feel safe?
• How many families must go bankrupt in order to make you feel safe?
• How many business owners should lose everything they've worked for in order to make you feel safe?
• How many people are you comfortable with committing suicide from hopelessness and financial ruin in order to make you feel safe?
• How many women and children should be victims of domestic violence in order to make you feel safe?
• When so many are trapped indoors, deprived of their usual exercise at their local gym, YMCA or other fitness facility, how many cases of heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes are you willing to tolerate in order to make you feel safe?
• How many cases of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, anxiety and PTSD do you find acceptable in order that you feel safe?
• How many people have to lose their jobs, their life savings, and most important precious time with their family and loved ones they will never get back in order to make you feel safe?

Also, remember this – if the macro-world TV news had never told you to be afraid of this virus, you wouldn't have. You likely would have gone about your life as usual along with everyone else. You likely would have thought that this was just another type of flu. So remember, citizens of Patria and the macro-world alike, that all your fears and panic exist because you were told by the mainstream media to live in fear and panic, because you can’t spell pandemic without panic. Patria will not live in fear and panic. Patria will say “kevál estí grippí” – it’s only the flu. Patria will let the virus run its course among healthy citizens who are at low risk of serious or potentially fatal complications, while protecting those who are at high risk, particularly seniors in nursing homes and anyone with pre-existing health issues or weakened immune systems. Patria will advocate reasonable common-sense precautions such as frequent hand washing, while aiming towards the goal of herd immunity in defiance of the “experts” and “our betters”.

A little over a month ago, Patria had only four words to say to the COVID-19 Thought Police and fear-mongers: I DO NOT CONSENT. To that message, one more can be added: I do not consent to wearing a mask in public places. Unless you are actually sick, caring for someone who is sick, or work in a hospital, masks are of dubious value. Not wearing masks can be Patria’s simple act of civil disobedience, Patria’s answer to the so-called experts and authority figures. If the fear-mongers are correct and a second wave of COVID-19 really does happen later this year or early 2021, and should any precinct legislatures or city mayors attempt to impose another lockdown for the sake of the tiny one percent or less of the population actually at risk, Patria’s second wave will be a wave of satyagraha – non-violent civil disobedience inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., but for the most part leaderless resistance. Know this. There will be non-violent pushback to any kind of authoritarian government overreach. SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS.

If a second Great Depression is foisted upon us because of the corona virus, Patria is prepared to weather the storm. Amid the declines in the stock market, both Wall Street and the Castoropolis Stock Exchange, the Patrienish Rupee is still the most stable micronational currency. When the lockdown was abandoned in mid-April, trillions of rupees were saved that would have been paid out in unemployment benefits and business bailouts, and instead will flow back into the economy from the pockets of consumers. This has not gone unnoticed in the last act of the Second Session that took place earlier today, the ratification of Patria’s fiscal 2021 budget, albeit paused for three hours so that members of this House could listen to Jungle Party leader Jim Rome’s Smack-Off XXVI on PMBC-1152. Congratulations to the Smack-Off winner, Leff in Laguna.

Patria is not a safe place for status quo dishwater-dull moderates. Patria is not a place for incremental change or “nothing will fundamentally change” centrists. In the remaining two years of this Congress’ mandate, Patria must remain a safe place for dissident voices, for liberals who have been red-pilled to some extent by COVID-19, for populists who despise the elites, for politically incorrect iconoclasts and for those who thumb their noses at the leftist Thought Police while at the same time advocating a made-in-Patria progressive democratic socialism in which the violent thugs of Antifa and the discredited rabble who destroy statues of great leaders and monuments to our proud heritage are not welcome.

Far be it from Patria to endorse any candidate in a macro-national election, particularly for the US presidency. Nonetheless, Patria still “feels the Bern” and believes that honorary Patrienish citizen Bernie Sanders would have won in 2016 and should be campaigning for re-election today rather than being on the losing end of a battle with the Democratic National Committee, Wall Street plutocrats and the establishment powers that be. Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020 and it will probably not end well for Sleepy Joe. Biden’s cognitive abilities have declined to the point where he is unfit for the job. His rambling, incoherent sound bites are not “gaffes” but clear displays of senility showing that he belongs in a retirement home, not the White House. American citizens living in the Inner Realm should not endorse the zero-sum binary game of US politics in which Republicans and Democrats are locked in a virtual duopoly, but should instead mail in their absentee ballots for a Third Party candidate such as the Green Party or a write-in vote for Bernie Sanders.

As Congress adjourns for the summer, let us pray: Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu and let us offer pranams to Mother Sheetala, who cures all infectious diseases. Jai Sheetala Mata!

Under the power vested in me by the Constitution of Patria, I declare closed the Second Session of the 51^st Congress, and call this Congress to re-assemble here on Monday, 21 September 2020, to open the Third Session of the 51^st Congress.