A lesson coronavirus is about to teach the world--[Jonathan Cook Has This Right]

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EXCERPT:



In fact, there is nothing unique about the coronavirus crisis. It is
simply a heightened version of the less visible crisis we are now
permanently mired in. As Britain sinks under floods each winter, as
Australia burns each summer, as the southern states of the US are
wrecked by typhoons and its great plains become dustbowls, as the
climate emergency becomes ever more tangible, we will learn this truth
slowly and painfully.




Those deeply invested in the current system – and those so
brainwashed they cannot see its flaws – will defend it to the bitter
end. They will learn nothing from the virus. They will point to
authoritarian states and warn that things could be far worse.




They will point a finger at Iran’s high death toll as confirmation
that our profit-driven societies are better, while ignoring the terrible
damage we have inflicted on Iran’s health services after years of
sabotaging its economy through ferocious sanctions. We left Iran all the
more vulnerable to coronavirus  because we wanted to engineer “regime
change” – to interfere under the pretence of “humanitarian” concern – as
we have sought to do in other countries whose resources we wished to
control, from Iraq to Syria and Libya.


Iran will be held responsible for a crisis we willed, that our
politicians intended (even if the speed and means came as a surprise),
to overthrow its leaders. Iran’s failures will be cited as proof of our
superior way of life, as we wail self-righteously about the outrage of a
“Russian interference” whose contours we can barely articulate.

Valuing the common good

Those who defend our system, even as its internal logic collapses in
the face of coronavirus and a climate emergency, will tell us how lucky
we are to live in free societies where some – Amazon executives, home
delivery services, pharmacies, toilet-paper manufacturers – can still
make a quick buck from our panic and fear. As long as someone is
exploiting us, as long as someone is growing fat and rich, we will be
told the system works – and works better than anything else imaginable.


But in fact, late-stage capitalist societies like the US and the UK
will struggle to claim even the limited successes against coronavirus of
authoritarian governments. Is Trump in the US or Johnson in the UK –
exemplars of “the market knows best” capitalism – likely to do better
than China at containing and dealing with the virus?




This lesson is not about authoritarian versus “free” societies. This
is about societies that treasure the common wealth, that value the
common good, above private greed and profit, above protecting the
privileges of a wealth-elite.