(ThyBlackMan.com) “The Universe is in equilibrium; therefore He that is without it, though his force be but a feather, can overturn the Universe.” Aleister Crowley
Most people associate apocalypse with destruction. But both the Greek and Latin roots for the word mean revelation. And the novel coronavirus came from outside our universe of known pathogens, not so much to turn the world upside down, as revealing the faults, fissures and fractures in our society.
Herd Immunity
We know that our government knew about the contagiousness of the coronavirus and the lethality of the disease it caused: COVID-19. We knew it was airborne and that it could be spread by people who were either pre-symptomatic or even asymptomatic. We knew that absent a vaccine, the most efficacious way to stop the spread was to have people don personal protective equipment (masks and gloves). And yet, the federal government, at the highest levels, chose to downplay what would become the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer, in our country in just a matter of months.
We wondered why black and brown people seemed more susceptible to the virus, while it was obvious the cause was their repeated exposure to it. We called them “essential workers.” They were then sacrificed on the altar of commerce allowing others to stay home, their lives and livelihoods protected.
Now, a group of “scientists” have issued “The Great Barrington Declaration” proposing herd immunity, which has been championed by Dr. Scott Atlas, the latest crackpot to join this administration. Their theory is that since younger people, and those without “co-morbidities” (diabetes, obesity etc.), are less likely to get seriously ill from contracting COVID, we should all resume normal activities and let the infection run its course. Or, make all of us sacrificial lambs so that the rich can continue to get richer.
Wall Street vs Main Street
From March through the fall we have seen millions of jobs lost, many never to return. Yet the stock market, led by big-tech companies and big-box stores, has continued to climb. The top fifty families increased their riches and now control more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. An additional eight million people have fallen into poverty and, despite gaining ten million jobs, the economy is still eleven million jobs shy of where the country was at the beginning of the pandemic.
It should not have come as a revelation that in our present-day society, money is more important than people. The health of the economy is measured by the height of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and not by the length of food and unemployment lines. The closure of gyms and bars made a group of men so angry they hatched a plot to kidnap the sitting Governors in two States who they planned to “try” for these offenses. No such anger, however, on behalf of the millions facing eviction because their places of work are shut down or for the kids falling behind because they can’t participate in “distance learning.”
Land of the free
While some politicians and pundits decry “cancel culture” and “wokeness”, these loudest proponents of law and order remain silent about what the FBI and Department of Homeland Security named the greatest domestic terror threat in the country: white supremacists, or as I prefer to call them, neo-confederates (neo-cons for short). They so fear their loss of white privilege, they are talking up another civil war. Their apologists in congress have begun to speak of a “bloodbath” at the polls when referring to a Biden victory. A curious analogy for a supposed “peaceful transfer of power.”
It is interesting to note that in her book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”, Isabell Wilkerson points out that it will be the year 2111 before black people will have been free in the United States as long as they were enslaved here. If anyone should be upset about how things are…
The big reveal
Perhaps the big reveal of 2020 is how gullible a large segment of the American population is. What we now call “conspiracy theories” in earlier times were called superstitions: beliefs or practices due to ignorance. The same type of people who believed in witches in Salem, Massachusetts now believe in QAnon: an anonymous official fighting a Satan-worshipping group of cannibal pedophiles in charge of the government. Our culture hasn’t come that far after all.
According to the Chinese calendar, 2020 begins a new sixty year cycle. In that time, what remains of the old order can be torn down and replaced with a brighter, more inclusive future. Ushering in an epoch of Peace, Prosperity and Equality. Our PPE against the old viruses of hatred, poverty and racism. Ultimately, that may be COVID’s apocalyptic purpose and the result of its revelations.
Staff Writer; Harry Sewell
