Game of lies

Those who are dying from COVID-19 infections are almost exclusively the elderly and the poor. And mortality among this latter group will become even more apparent when the virus gets a hold in the vast urban sprawls of Africa, Asia and South America. The old folks are those who remember the past and the wretched are those who do the dirty work. But who cares about yester-years and what might have been, as there is no alternative. And those who have little or nothing are so numerous that there will always be enough to do the lifting and carrying, pushing and pulling that machines cannot do more efficiently. A massive cull of poor and old would largely resolve the social question and the demand for a more egalitarian wealth distribution.

In the wings of power’s theatre lurk some very unscrupulous people, Bannon, Cummings and other less known murky characters. They have a simplistic vision of the world where only power is pertinent, and the power of money in particular. They completely ignore the subtle countless interactions that make society and the planet’s ecosystem possible. They whisper in the ears of the ruling class and give them words to express their instincts. What if there are a few million less old-age pensioners and destitute, they are of no use anyway. They are just cost and no gain. They add to the social bill, not to the bottom line. In a world where only the wealthy get wealthier, and where wealth crushingly dominates political power, the health and wellbeing, life or death, of unproductive elements is of least concern. From the top of the social pyramid a pandemic could be perceived as a source of profit. But, with their closed obsessional vision of society, they were unable to foresee that production would grind to a halt and profits would evaporate. The pandemic turned out to be a whirlwind that is battering the markets with unprecedented force, and plaintive cries are rising from the world’s stock exchanges, “save us before we sink”.

That the virus is highly infectious and that symptoms only appear after one or two weeks, if at all, so that people unknowingly contaminate all they touch for a period of two to four weeks, was made public in early January. All eyes were on China’s Hubei province in total shutdown. But just a few Asian governments actually organised to face the coming onslaught. Elsewhere they did nothing, contenting themselves with asinine comments on seasonal flu. Was the present situation planned or is it just the consequence of crass stupidity. In either case, those executives should not be where they are pretending to govern a nation for the benefit of all its citizens, a pretence that has been an obvious lie for quite a while.