After Greta follows Corona
A critical examination of current events
Preface
I do not intend with this writing to trivialize what is currently happening in the world, or to assign blame. I am more concerned that we should reflect on how this could have happened and what is currently happening. This opinion will probably trigger emotions in many readers. These are difficult questions, which we have to deal with in the current situation. What are we prepared to sacrifice in these times? How do we define our understanding of ethics, our social responsibility? How far does the maxim go: one for all, all for one?
A look back
2019 was marked by a global movement of unimagined dimensions. Especially young people took to the streets and demonstrated for a better future #FridaysForFuture. The ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, consumer madness, these were topics that were discussed all over the world. Greta Thunberg travelled around the world in her very own way, as a symbolic figure to give the big and powerful people of this world a talking to.
In France, many ordinary citizens stood up against an increasingly repressive system of neoliberalism. The movement of the Yellow Vests was an issue beyond France’s borders until spring 2019 and then disappeared from the mainstream media.
The state of our Mother Earth is definitely a cause for concern, as is the state of most globalized societies, in which citizens are kept as modern work slaves, prevented from thinking by shallow entertainment. The majority of citizens do not work out of an inner motivation, but out of external constraints. Consumption is capitalized, and those who cannot afford everything are considered failures. The rent, the car, food, entertainment, childcare, pleasure, travel, possessions. All this has to be financed. That’s what the banks are for. They give us money through loans and with each new loan they create potential money that flows into their balance sheets.
Potential money is money that will only be earned in the future. As long as the economy operates, potential money can be created at will. The system can deal with individual, small contributors that go bankrupt because of their debts.
In 2008, the economy also learned that the political system is willing to pump vast amounts of money into so-called “system-relevant” companies to prevent the global economic system from collapsing.
So far so good. This is roughly our situation before 2020.
Now, here comes corona
And then a little anecdote:
Mother Earth went to the doctor (God, Creator, Allah, whoever) and told him that she discovered brown spots on her sensitive skin, which she finds incredibly itchy. The doctor took a closer look and made the diagnosis Homo Sapiens, an autoimmune disease. Although Homo Sapiens is harmless to Mother Earth in small quantities, in larger concentrations the symbiote behaves extremely damaging to the sensitive skin of Mother Earth. The doctor quickly has a vaccination ready. He uses his knowledge that corona viruses are involved in about 10% to 25% of cases of colds. The doctor also knows that the lungs of the Homo Sapiens symbiote are most damaged in the centres of the brown spots. So he decides to vaccinate Mother Earth in the hope that the brown spots on the skin of Mother Earth will disappear without wiping out the entire population of Homo Sapiens.
Homo Sapiens means wise man. And the so reasonable people are now collectively going crazy! But is that really so? Or is it not rather suggested to people that they should go crazy? Why do we only read, see and hear the negative aspects of the corona crisis and that in a completely distorted form? Why do those scientists who strongly criticize the measures ordered by the politicians not get enough of a chance to speak? Why do we not find out how many tests, even in selective application, turn out negative? Why do we only hear from those persons who have been tested positive?
Television, and sensational reporting, aim to confront us with the negative events on this earth. The focus is on wars, deaths, environmental disasters. In addition, there is the economic information and stock market figures. So we are conditioned to perceive the world as a threat and at the same time we are conditioned to do everything possible not to harm the economy.
This has developed into hypercapitalism in the last 47 years since the abandonment of the price fixing to gold in 1973 (gold standard, Bretton Woods system, after Bretton Woods). A capitalism that exists solely to distribute potential money from the bottom up. Debt is normal, we have all learned that. And when those who have accounted for the potential money (debt) go bankrupt, they have to be saved, especially if they are big companies. Too much potential money would otherwise be destroyed.
Here the question should be allowed: Do we really need to save everyone, especially system-relevant institutions? Which institutions are “system-relevant”?
Airlines? Banks? Pharmaceutical companies? Car industry?
Or rather bakers? Farmers? Caretakers? Truck drivers? Postmen? All the simple people who make a dignified civil society possible in the first place?
Disguise Corona
Now that a monetary system has been installed for decades with the sole aim of shifting the money earned by ordinary citizens from the bottom to the top, the measures are now aimed at something completely different under the guise of Corona. Very shortly before the system collapses, quite by chance, a virus appears, which leads to the shutting down of entire branches of the economy and the entire social structures and activities come to a standstill. The consequence will be that only the big, strong ones will survive this shock. The small ones will go bankrupt and since they are not “system-relevant” in the end, they will not be saved on a large scale.
The governments will step in with their state-owned banks and rescue in particular “system-relevant” companies. But here too, in the end it will be the case that this potential money (i.e. the loans that the states are now granting) in these disproportionate amounts will mean that much of it will have to be written off. Inflation will be the consequence and citizens will have to pay again in the end, in the form of tax increases and exorbitant prices.
Instead of skimming money directly from the citizens, the states are now being fleeced, which for their part cannot go bankrupt, but will nevertheless be dependent on getting the money back somehow. All in the name of Corona. The debt trap is being magnified. Small fish will die, big fish will survive. It is very important that all those who already have the money now can skim off even more money in the aftermath of the Corona catastrophe, which will be generated by those who survived the crisis and then quickly gain in value.
With the measures taken
The citizens pay for it with social impoverishment. The risk of domestic violence will increase over time, as will distrust of fellow human beings the longer the state of emergency lasts. However, solidarity among people will decrease as resources become scarce and inflation rises, as will the chances of a fair future for our children, who now have to be educated by overburdened parents while they have a duty to their employers.
Reporting
Everything is attributed to Corona. Although in probably 99% of the cases the death of a patient infected with covid19 is not solely attributed to the virus but primarily to severe pre-existing conditions. We only see the numbers of people who tested positive and not those who tested negative. Example: Switzerland. Currently (article from March 22nd 2020 [german only]) Switzerland is able to carry out about 7000 tests per day. Of these 7000 tests, perhaps 700 are positive, which means that 90% of the tests are negative. Of the 700 positive tests, about 5% will have a more serious course of disease, of which perhaps 50% will die. That would be 17 deaths from 7000 tests. In the case of the people who die, it is not the coronavirus that plays the decisive role, but the pre-existing conditions that these people bring with them, some of which are so severe that they alone would have led to death sooner or later. See also the statements of Prof. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi. For 22 years, he headed the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the Johannes Gutenburg University Mainz and is one of the most internationally respected infectiologists and most cited medical researchers in Germany.
The incidence, i.e. the number of persons tested positive per 100,000 persons, also depends strongly on how the test is performed. It is not possible to compare these figures because each country, and even within countries different regions, have different procedures for testing, recording and also reporting the test results.
Consideration
Of course a human tragedy is happening right now. And it hurts incredibly to see so many people die, who themselves have become victims of our unhealthy lifestyle and our short-sighted handling of the resources of this, our earth. Many of them have sacrificed a lifetime for their families and loved ones, perhaps had to live in an unhealthy environment with high levels of air pollution, perhaps were not aware of these problems, perhaps did not have the means to always take care of their health, or perhaps it was not so important to them. Ultimately, however, the question must be allowed, whether it would not be more sensible to give these seriously ill people back a last measure of dignity, including their loved ones, and to let them say goodbye to those who have accompanied them throughout their lives, and to allow them to grieve appropriately, instead of separating everyone from each other, isolating people and letting each one die in absolute loneliness? Today there is social distancing, tomorrow social isolation, and the day after tomorrow isolated, collective suicide. What is happening right now does not correspond at all to the nature of human beings and certainly not to the nature of children. They should be allowed to play together and not be exposed to the homeschooling of overburdened parents. The children are our future, they are no danger, not even under the condition that Corona rules.
If we continue this actionism, Corona will not only significantly change, if not overthrow, not only our understanding of ethics, but also our economic system, our political landscape and, to a profound extent, our social self-image. In the end, it is up to each individual to ensure that this crisis ultimately contributes to the positive development of people and their societies.
Postcorona scenarios
1. after Corona, guilty parties are sought, states accuse each other. Especially USA and China. The war that follows will effectively wipe out Europe and cause massive damage to the entire northern hemisphere.
2. the states remain reasonable, but totalitarian systems emerge, the way back to the basic rights of the citizens of many democracies becomes stony. Companies are being nationalised, with the argument that the state was the one that made the rescue possible in the first place.
3. the way back to normal civil rights is granted, but nothing changes in the financial system. The debts to the state are cancelled for the “system-relevant” large companies, and the normal citizen pays the reconstruction aid with high taxes. The rich and powerful skim off, as before.
4. the value of each individual citizen is recognized. A form of society is increasingly establishing itself in which the daily concerns of the vast majority of citizens no longer mean securing their own existence for the following day. The unconditional basic income is coming.
5) In the sense of the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial) there is the next step: the separation of powers, the unbundling of economy, politics and monetary system. State banks will be abolished, a single currency will be created, which will be controlled neither by powerful companies alone, nor by powerful persons alone, nor by powerful states alone. Mankind is beginning to see itself for what it is, a creation of nature, which has a right to exist on Mother Earth only in harmony with ourselves and nature.
I, myself, am not afraid of Corona. I am much more afraid of the blind actionism of the decision-makers, on whom everyone is trying to distinguish themselves in this crisis and on whom we are so dependent. I am also afraid of the uncritical attitude and blind obedience of the people. The situation shows in an impressive way how fear can be used to control the behaviour of normal people in this world.
“We have a choice! So we think and we act!”
It is up to us that this is not replaced by
“We’re scared, so let’s obey and shut up!”
