Portent of pandemic

Just months ago, few would have thought it possible that a submicroscopic ball of genetic coding could bring the world’s wealthiest powers to their knees. But it has.

In the space of a few months the Covid-19 virus projected its spiky arms not only into the delicate cells of the human lung, but into the very membrane of the global economic and political order itself. The United States, being the emblem of this order, has also become the biggest example of its enormous failure. In desperation, the American Empire, the wealthiest and most powerful one humanity has ever known, is flailing in spasms and fits of insanity, denial and outright cruelty. It is robbing from its allies and client states masks and ventilators, as it lashes out even more furiously at nations which have defied its hegemonic control.

And, while it bails out corporations and the richest industries, it has abandoned its citizenry to fend for themselves amidst a raging storm where nearly every “non-essential” business has been shut down, the for-profit healthcare system is beginning to buckle, the bodies of the dead are mounting, and the mass graves are being dug.

Amidst this assault on humanity, there is a growing assault on the living earth itself. The US is rapidly stripping the last meager protections for the environment, accelerating climate change and the collapse of the biosphere itself.

Donald Trump, a leader that is rapidly approaching the malevolence of Caligula, presides over this plague-ridden stage of the American Empire. On his watch, nurses and doctors are left to wrap themselves in garbage bags as their only defense against the microbe’s merciless rampage. Governors are reduced to a bidding war against other governors for life saving medical equipment. Workers that are considered “non-essential” are left to figure out how to navigate the brutal landscape of capitalist predation, with few options available to them to maintain their health, food security or home. Immigrants and prisoners are being left in cages to die without any adequate medical assistance. Most Americans are now left in an impossible situation. “Shelter in place” even though they may lose their livelihoods and homes in a very short time. Millions are unemployed with millions more on the way.

Millions have or will lose their health insurance since this fundamental human right has been tethered to employment and whims of the market economy, one that has been built on the mercurial and shifting sands of the so-called free market. Now that marketplace is in shambles. The government’s answer to their plight has been to toss them a laughable, one-time pittance of $1200, while hundreds of billions of dollars are allotted to the wealthiest corporations and industries.

The largely defanged Environmental Protection Agency has, for all intents and purposes, been shuttered amidst this pandemic. Now corporations are free to pollute without fear of oversight or penalty.

Excerpted from: 'Portent of Pandemic'.

Counterpunch.org