"Just as there are no atheists on a sinking ship, there are no free-marketeers in a pandemic" // “Chinese Virus,” World Market
NB: Suddenly government intervention in the economy is crucial to human survival. All the budget cuts and dismissive attitude to health care and medical work are coming back to haunt "free-market" fundamentalists - but poor and underprivileged people have to pay for it. 'Socialism' was a bad word for mainstream opinion - we have time now to reflect on our social responsibilities.
It may be too much to ask of our communally fixated political leaders and their apologists, but I will still try: please think, ladies and gents - is there Hindu Corona vs Muslim Corona? Indian Corona vs Pakistani Corona? Dalit Corona vs OBC Corona? Will a quick swig of cow urine fix this one? A communal riot or two? A new law on citizenship?
Similar partisan rhetoric across the globe will need to be rethought. Rhetoric about brave soldiers at the front has to be replaced by 'brave medical workers in the hospitals' - but will anyone think about how much they are paid, and why footballers and MP's earn much more? About why we have enough money for nuclear bombs and aircraft carriers, but so little for protective masks and respirators? About why we have so much enthusiasm for cricket matches but so little for being kind? Sometimes germs can teach philosophical lessons more rapidly than battalions of professors.. DS
...Has the national life of this country ever been transformed so completely and at such a speed? In the course of a week, the British landscape has changed and changed utterly. Once crowded streets are deserted. Schools are closed, summer exams cancelled. Football grounds are shuttered and padlocked. Theatres are dark, cinemas silent. They’ve even stopped changing the guard at Buckingham Palace – and from Friday night the pubs are shut.
The economy has juddered into reverse, set to shrink by 15% according to some estimates – a collapse more catastrophic than the Great Depression. Each day has brought news that, in normal times, would constitute an epochal, ground-shaking development but which, in the current climate, has struggled for airtime. The Bank of England cut interest rates to their lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694, and announced an infusion of £200bn. The pound slid to its lowest level against the dollar since the mid-1980s.
Meanwhile, a Conservative government has torn up 40 years of small-state, free market doctrine, first promising to spend a staggering £330bn, and then on Friday evening
“Chinese Virus,” World Market
see also
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.”
It may be too much to ask of our communally fixated political leaders and their apologists, but I will still try: please think, ladies and gents - is there Hindu Corona vs Muslim Corona? Indian Corona vs Pakistani Corona? Dalit Corona vs OBC Corona? Will a quick swig of cow urine fix this one? A communal riot or two? A new law on citizenship?
Similar partisan rhetoric across the globe will need to be rethought. Rhetoric about brave soldiers at the front has to be replaced by 'brave medical workers in the hospitals' - but will anyone think about how much they are paid, and why footballers and MP's earn much more? About why we have enough money for nuclear bombs and aircraft carriers, but so little for protective masks and respirators? About why we have so much enthusiasm for cricket matches but so little for being kind? Sometimes germs can teach philosophical lessons more rapidly than battalions of professors.. DS
...Has the national life of this country ever been transformed so completely and at such a speed? In the course of a week, the British landscape has changed and changed utterly. Once crowded streets are deserted. Schools are closed, summer exams cancelled. Football grounds are shuttered and padlocked. Theatres are dark, cinemas silent. They’ve even stopped changing the guard at Buckingham Palace – and from Friday night the pubs are shut.
The economy has juddered into reverse, set to shrink by 15% according to some estimates – a collapse more catastrophic than the Great Depression. Each day has brought news that, in normal times, would constitute an epochal, ground-shaking development but which, in the current climate, has struggled for airtime. The Bank of England cut interest rates to their lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694, and announced an infusion of £200bn. The pound slid to its lowest level against the dollar since the mid-1980s.
Meanwhile, a Conservative government has torn up 40 years of small-state, free market doctrine, first promising to spend a staggering £330bn, and then on Friday evening
committing
to pay 80% of the wages of workers who have had to down tools, with
“no limit” on the funds available. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, did not
exaggerate when he said nothing like this had ever been done before. Even
hardcore socialism usually stopped short of calling for the government to take
on the payroll of private sector employers. Now it’s Tory party policy.
That represents a
profound political shift. Just as there are no atheists on a sinking ship,
there are no free-marketeers in a pandemic. Suddenly the old arguments of left
and right have melted away, as a Tory health secretary commands the British
manufacturing industry to start making ventilators, explaining that
only government – not the private sector – has the clout to fight this menace….
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/as-fearful-britain-shuts-down-coronavirus-has-transformed-everything“Chinese Virus,” World Market
Last month, the World
Health Organization renamed the virus “Covid-19” (Coronavirus disease of 2019)
with the explicit goal of minimizing the social stigma of a name that referred
to a specific place—and, by extension, a specific people. Not ones to pay heed
to international norms, conservative politicians in the US have continued to
insist on the phrase “Wuhan virus,” or “Chinese coronavirus,” in a transparent
effort to scapegoat and distract from their own catastrophic mismanagement of
the worst public health crisis in recent American history.
On Monday, a White House official reportedly described the virus as the “Kung Flu.” The following day Donald Trump defended using the term “Chinese virus,” explaining, “’cause it comes from China. It’s not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.” Less equivocal, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton paired a tweet last week about the “Wuhan coronavirus” with a suggestion that China would have to “pay” for what it had done to America.
On Monday, a White House official reportedly described the virus as the “Kung Flu.” The following day Donald Trump defended using the term “Chinese virus,” explaining, “’cause it comes from China. It’s not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.” Less equivocal, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton paired a tweet last week about the “Wuhan coronavirus” with a suggestion that China would have to “pay” for what it had done to America.
There is no question
that such terminology is racist and xenophobic. Yet the fact that this global
pandemic started in Wuhan, and not elsewhere in China, should not be simply
overlooked, either. In recent decades, Wuhan has been caught up in the latest
stage of globalization, in which international capital continues to extend
further inland in pursuit of cheaper land and labor markets, spawning
international links for goods such as steel and automobile parts, which remain
hidden to the average consumer. It is a major Chinese city, yet outside the
core of glittering metropolises along the nation’s coast.
It is precisely the unexceptional status of Wuhan as a second-tier Chinese city that is notable. What the global spread of the novel coronavirus from Wuhan suggests is that the culprit here is not the unique circumstances of a particular place, but rather the now-extensive commercial connections that bring ever more of these kinds of places closer and closer together, into a larger and larger whole. In recounting the story of the novel coronavirus, it becomes increasingly clear that its movements have thus far mimicked the pathways of the 21st-century global market....
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/chinese-virus-world-market/?fbclid=IwAR31Y7JX2h9Gi7dwjv_cveewpde2Lckxf7up7adO3Q2lsj_3DqhjEcS9oNAIt is precisely the unexceptional status of Wuhan as a second-tier Chinese city that is notable. What the global spread of the novel coronavirus from Wuhan suggests is that the culprit here is not the unique circumstances of a particular place, but rather the now-extensive commercial connections that bring ever more of these kinds of places closer and closer together, into a larger and larger whole. In recounting the story of the novel coronavirus, it becomes increasingly clear that its movements have thus far mimicked the pathways of the 21st-century global market....
see also
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.”
