the depressing conclusion is not that Western corporate&political actors were necessarily in ongoing conspiracy with foreign powers to destabilize & weaken the US (though that's not so impossible) but that their interests aligned enough for that to be the natural course of events https://twitter.com/_djpn/status/1334821635082211331

that the American Federation of Teachers, http://Amazon.com  and China all had interest in keeping the schools closed up through the presidential election doesn't require a conspiracy, although within each entity a fair amount of conspiring (or planning) probably has gone on

I spoke with a number of high level education and union officials in one state week after riots really kicked off and they all instantly coalesced around "racism is a public health crisis"while city was burning, businesses shattered,anarchy in previously quiet black neighborhoods

at that point political fault lines on school reopening hadn't really set in & i was sure the images of thousands of undersupervised and bored teenagers running amok through stores and ghost riding cop cars would make city elders say "these kids gotta be in school." i was wrong.

did that decision require conspiracy? not necessarily in some grand fashion. social media just allows "correct" views to percolate largely without centralized planning, but I still think some centralized planning went on- which meant any dissension around the riots was of limits.

the country can survive a lot of corruption+fraud as long as it is local. political machines that distribute favors locally can keep cities as functional&dysfunctional as more idealistic modes of governance.
it's worrying if such corruption is not even local to the nation anymore

which is why the mayors and governors dining at french laundry and flying on private jets to cabo while approving more stringent restrictions and shutdowns on local businesses are a little more worrying than merely hypocritical. if they're being paid off, it's not by anyone close