Image Source: Pixabay
It sometimes feels incredible that this time last year, many of us had never even heard of coronavirus. There had been no lockdowns. No lives lost. No economic collapse.
And for many of us, the threat of a pandemic felt like a relic of the last century, something about as menacing as hat pins, phonograph needles, or corsets laced too tightly.
As Arun Gupta tweeted the other day, “Pardon the catastrophic global warming, we now return you to your regularly scheduled state violence.”
Image courtesy of our comrade Hermit
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed up the world….
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
— The Second Coming”, William Butler Yeats, 1919
What a joy to travel again!
COVID-19 is not just a disease; it is also a state of mind, a psychosis, a fear. It is an event that, all over the world, unleashed irrational behavior by the governments, individuals, and media. It triggered speculations, bizarre analyses, and selective ‘cut-and-paste science.’
Mayhem in Melbourne
On August 2, lockdown measures were implemented in Melbourne, Australia, that were so draconian that Australian news commentator Alan Jones said on Sky News: “People are entitled to think there is an ‘agenda to destroy western society.’”
It is time to stop irresponsible finger-pointing.
All over the world, as this essay is being written, well over 17 million COVID-19 cases have been reported, and 676,000 people died. And instead of concentrating on serious research, trying to save human lives and attempting to stop the global calamity, ‘residents’ of the White House are spending all their energy on their own political survival, as well as on the survival of the regime.
Our landlord doesn’t read my letters, as far as we know, but it feels like it’s only fair to write a letter each month, if we’re not going to be paying the rent.
As the coronavirus, once again, surges out of control in the United States, it is safe to say that even those few lessons learned have been cast aside by those who place profits before people. Greed and ignorance, not public health policy, is deciding the fate of tens of thousands in our nation who are likely to die and many times that who will suffer from COVID-19 as we stumble from one surge to another.
