Monday, April 20, 2020

COVID-19 Side Effects: Reality and Clarity


- CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -

COVID-19 Side Effects: Reality and Clarity

Posted By Kathleen Wallace On March 13, 2020

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Photograph Source: Steve Bowbrick – CC BY 2.0

The fragility of our American system is about to be laid bare.
A foundation built on corporate welfare without any notion of a common welfare for the citizens can’t withstand an onslaught of reality. The corona virus has no interest in false economies or nonsensical patriotism. It can’t tell if it’s chomping into a billionaire or a homeless individual. It’s egalitarian in that sense—of course the wealthy can somewhat mitigate their risks, but as the incoming reports of sports superstars as well as Hollywood elites testing positive for the virus shows–they are simply pending germ factories to hijack, just like the rest of us.
Having no universal healthcare like other industrialized nations has been a moral lapse of incredible proportions. Trump certainly never advocated for such a thing and sadly Joe Biden says he will veto a bill for this should it land on his desk. This type of “choice” for voters doesn’t allow for any ethical path. Accepting this sort of situation broadens over to an acceptance of all manner of sociopathic individualism. Selfishness may not be called out immediately; the adults in the room sneer at the impossibility of what other nations have been doing for decades, but ultimately something akin to karma seems to arise. The success of humans was dependent on collective survival practice—this moment in time when the sociopaths are in charge is an aberration. They have convinced most Americans that somehow this is normal—for us to not let someone ever get sick (try it at a fast food job—no pay, then no food, then no home……in short, you are not allowed to be sick). This ludicrous situation is nothing but taking the human condition on as a commodity, wringing out the work, and allowing the hoarding of money for a minuscule top group of individuals. They could never in multiple lifetimes spend all that cash—all the while others can’t even get sick. We are asking the poor to be superhuman to swell the belly of the elite.
Comedian/writer etc. Megan Amran tweeted (I’ll clean it up a little) that COVID-19 is going to be a black light in a semen covered hotel room. The United States is that hotel room. In the daylight it looks pretty normal, but in reality…………….
We don’t have any notion of what is truly going on with the spread. Two strains? One much worse? There’s evidently been no systematic testing to even reliably know mortality rates. Are many infected with mild symptoms? The information is just not there for us in any reliable manner. We have the strength of the internet to disseminate information, but how can anyone know what is correct in this environment? Trump recently saying we’d be down to zero cases! How’s that working out? How long before he has it at this rate?
The indications that this thing would be dire came way back in January. I doubt the Chinese officials were welding doors to contain people in their apartments out of a love for welding. The videos were coming out many, many weeks ago. The time for preparation in the form of testing kit production was then. But we have a government that operates on holograms and empty rhetoric and a populace stunted in a daddy tell me what’s going on phase of development.
There is a potential at the end of all this for massive societal change. It’s all going to be laid bare—the rot of corruption, the filth of allowing hoarder billionaires to flourish while people die needlessly. All of this could have been avoided….all the way down to not allowing the misery of those open air food markets. Causing pain for any sentient creature is going to snowball and that’s what has happened here. All the great plagues seem to have come from wanton cruelty, whether sending out soldiers in huge numbers to kill each other during WW I or the European invasion of the New World —even Genghis Khan’s legions bringing sickness to invaded areas is implicated in plague distribution. Cruelty and a dismissal of the sanctity and worth of others….. well it just lets the microbes get in on the fun of destruction. Cruelty is the seed.
When the dust clears from this, hopefully the entire notion of trust in government may be gone. We can’t continue to mindlessly accept the hierarchy as it is, and a new age must emerge.
We are not here to work and toil for billionaires, and we must begin to care about others.

Article printed from CounterPunch.org: https://www.counterpunch.org


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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

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