So we are finally here. May whatever gods you believe in - science! - have mercy on our souls. This is unprecedented. The culmination of capitalist decline manifested through the microbial world to wreak havoc on our very bodies.
There is no going back from this. Our society has now fundamentally changed. Last night a clown, who forgot to put on his make up, announced to the nation that, because he screwed up, the country was in lockdown. We are paying the price for the intransigence and incompetence of the last and final expression of a pestilent economic system. It has failed, and so have they.
What this means remains - at least to my addled brains - vague. You can go out but you can't. You can go to the shops but you can't. You must remain at home except when you can't. I don't see how this can work, even when, ostensibly, the reasons are sound: no one wants this bloody disease. Will this affect mutual aid networks? Surely not!
Unfortunately, because the powers that be failed to act earlier , it will be us paying the price. The working class. Make no mistake whatever else this is it is class war. Just look at what is being proposed in the Emergency Powers Bill. As well as giving vague (ie sweeping) opowers to cops and immigration scumbags, it makes provision for local councils to have their duty of care for the vulnerable removed. Though you might well ask who would notice?
I don't see how on earth this can be enforced (which isn't to advocate for recklessness). Again it will be the working class that gets the blame. We can all point at a few idiots in soccer shirts drinking their way thriugh La Macarena on the beach, when, really, that's a bit fucking stupid. But what about the bosses needlessly dragging people in to work when they could work from home, or when they really shouldn't (cough cough). It's easy to pick on the working class, but idiots on beaches are a product of class war politics and media malign: the demonisation of the poor.
Make no mistake this is the close of a chapter of our society. The page ends spattered in the blood of the vulnerable and the poor. Again. That is what you must remeber: that is always how it ends. When it happens it proves the point: capitalism doesn't - cannot - work. That's it. Let their be socialism. The government are asking for a quarte of a million NHS volunteers! Vindication, if indeed a most hollow victory. A terrible toll is being exacted. It cannot be for nought.
Where we go from here will be decided with class consciousness and activity. We are now all in this together and locking our doors is at best a temporary solution. I hope it helps. I'm not advocating people ignore it, obviously! I am saying that in the absence of leadership direction and a strategy to fight a pandemic, which we lack, this is unsustainable. Are the cops going to arrest everyone who goes out for a walk? This strategy is more practical in built up/urban areas. Here? I'm not so sure.
And consider: what can the state actually do to punish people? Arrest them? Fine them? This is capitalism's failings utterly exposed. It will expose the police, overstretched already, to the virus. Locking people up puts them further at risk. It criminalises people with consequences to come further down the line. Can our system cope with Covid rebels? Fining just impoverishes people. I get it's meant as a deterrent but you'll just end up pushing people into desperation - the sort of stupidity that currently forces people without financial security to keep working when they may be infectious.
The government claimed to have abandoned their hideously malformed "herd immunity" play. The rest of the world were aghast at such stupidity. But the reality is that it's the default position, and it remains so, in lieu of proper testing and quarantining (as practiced by such commie bulwarks as South Korea and Vietnam). Doing nothing means letting the infection run rampant. We can try to flatten the curve, I hope we succeed because this is going to take a considerable psychic toll on the nation (if I'm any indicator).
Capitalism has no answer. As we say goodbye to society we must realise it's never coming back. Not in the shape we used to know. If people can't go to shops other than supermarkets then half the high street has just been wiped out. That's going to devastate the economy. If capitalism doesn't relent and the economy not put in the people's hands then there will be dire consequences. But the Tories have no answer. The humourless clown at the helm doesn't really know what to do. He forgot his face paint. How much longer can this charade continue?
So in short: fuck capitalism once again. Take care
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